A study published in The Lancet described how the vein was taken from a dead man, stripped of its own cells and then bathed in stem cells from the girl.

The girl previously had poor blood flow between her intestines and liver.

The surgeons told BBC that there was a "striking improvement in her quality of life" in addition to the fact that the girl was "spared the trauma of having veins harvested from the deep neck or leg with the associated risk of lower limb disorders."

They also said that the procedure needed "to be converted into full clinical trials... if regenerative medicine solutions are to become widely used."

This is the latest in a series of body parts grown from stem cells to match the tissue of a patient.